July 1st

There were SO MANY details in Sweden that made me feel like these were my people and this was my homeland. (Although I have very few photos of me on this trip since I was the one taking them and honestly, I will avoid being photographed if at all possible)

Once we arrived in Stockholm we went on a walk-a-bout checking out the city.  The Swedish travel agent he used was not very helpful with anything we should be seeing or doing, so we were very much on our own.  We just happened to stumble upon B’s favorite landscape element in a little park. He had to check it out to see how they set up the rocks and such. And then in the same park discovered a sculpture of a “Master Olof”, which just happens to be the nickname that he called Master D while I was pregnant and every so often since then.  Master Olof looks like he was a pretty tough guy. The mountain bike trail that runs along the border of our property in Park City just happens to be called “The Flying Dog trail”.  This little bar was right across the street from our first hotel – The Nordic.   The way they make their hot chocolate is to stick a hunk of chocolate on a stick and then you swirl it round and round through steamed milk.  It was delicious!Don’t these breakfast buffet plates scream Sweden?  Plus Swedish pancakes and lingonberries – the real deal and tasted a lot better than ihop. The day after we arrived in Stockholm, the travel agent recommended we take a ferry to an island called Grinda.  Little known fact: Sweden is made up of over 26000 islands.  Even Stockholm is a bunch of islands connected by bridges.  It was very cool to look down on it as we flew in. We were late for our ferry because of poor communication.  Communication there is generally not a problem at all.  Every single Swedish person speaks English as well as we do.  There is never difficulty in understanding each other.  Although, the Swedish, unlike the Danish, are not overtly friendly.  They are not rude like the Austrians, but are more likely to keep to themselves unless they know you.  It drove B a little crazy because he loves to talk to everyone about everything wherever he goes and the Swedes were not engaging with him very easily.  I felt at home as I am much less likely to engage with strangers .

GRINDA:

July 3-4

We ended up getting on a later ferry (as they took pity on our folly) to take us over to this island.  It was green and beautiful and has some history being bought by the first director of the Nobel Foundation – who awards the Nobel prizes every year since 1906. (Not the actual guy it’s named after which I originally assumed and appealed to my nerd interests).  This guy built his summer home here and brought his family and many of the Nobel winners.  It has no paved roads and no real transportation.  We had no idea and our luggage was not made for hiking down gravel roads a mile or two to get to the hotel.  After calling the front desk multiple times to try to get some help (bad travel agent) one of the island workers drove past on an atv with a trailer full of trash and offered to take our bags to the hotel.  Phew, I’m pretty sure our wheels would not have survived. 
The baby goats were friendly.The hiking was really beautiful. The hotel was quaint, but I was expecting it to be dedicated to Nobel winners or have photos or history and there was none of that.   Awesome flowers on the pathsIt kept raining on and off on us and we could have rented kayaks, but knowing my absolute lack of kayaking abilities I wasn’t super anxious to take that on, but we did see a really cute swan family from the shore. More lovely flowersThe view from the hotel deck.  It’s deceiving though because you can see buildings down by the water but there are really very few structures on this island.  There are a couple campground areas and hidden cabins we stumbled upon.  It was almost completely off the grid – no tv – super spotty to zero wifi.  A good place to hideaway.  July 4-5

Back to Stockholm for a night.  This was at my favorite hotel we stayed in and only for one night called The Grand Hotel.  It sits right across the harbor from the Royal Palace and everyone there was the friendliest and most helpful so far.  And they had the most amazing flower arrangements everywhere and the best Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes (on the kids menu).  The view out our windowWe spent some time walking through the streets.  I’m not sure if these birds are suspended here year round or if there was a special occasion but those are the kind of birds I like.  Sweden, in a surprise win made it to the World Soccer Cup and people all over the city were meeting up to watch it in bars and restaurants. We went over to The VASA museum.  This was especially (in my opinion – embarrassingly) interesting for Sweden.  They built this ship in the early 1600’s as the largest most weaponized warship ever built for the war against Poland, but the king was a bit too anxious to get it out sailing and didn’t have it tested for sea worthiness, I must have inherited my math abilities from these engineers. They launched it with thousands of people watching and it caught a breeze tipped over and sunk 320 ft off the shore in the harbor within 5 minutes.  They finally raised it in the 1960’s and have been preserving it and moved it into a museum. When you first go in, they have you watch a video about the construction of it and what happened and how they figured out once it was raised why it happened and then at the end they say something like “Yeah it sucks that it sunk so fast and was so poorly constructed but if it hadn’t we would not be enjoying it today”.   JARVSO:

July 5-8

The next day we jumped on a train and using our very capable train skills missed our connection where we needed to change trains and took just a few hours longer backtracking and finally making it to the ski resort in the north that has mountain biking.  It’s in a tiny little town with one main street but absolutely beautiful views from our 5th floor room.  Even though Sweden sold Volvo to the Chinese, they are still the most advertised and prevalent cars that they seem to still want to claim as their own brand.  I thought about going out on a little hike while B was dangerously downhill riding, but they had all of these photos and notices that there are wolves hanging around the area.  I chose not to venture off on my own. Views views views viewsThe sun DOES NOT GO DOWN in Sweden in the summer.  I found it a bit unnerving as I took this photo at midnight out my window.  This is as dark as it got and then at 3:30 am it was BRIGHT AND SUNNY.  I think it would have been fine if we could have used the black out shades but the weather is so temperate, they don’t have air conditioning. We would leave the windows open, but the windows don’t slide open, they open wide making the black out curtains worthless.  I finally figured out to wear eyeshades that the airline always gives me but I rarely use.  Appropriately, this was the very hardest trail on the mountain.  We never saw a single person attempt it as it was straight down with loose rocks, roots and sharp turns.  I wonder if TT could have tackled it.  This mountain bike riding required us to suit up like we were motorcycle riding complete with full body pads.  I looked like the hulk.  I only attempted the easiest trail every other run with B.  BACK TO STOCKHOLM: Lydmar Hotel 

July 8-10

This hotel is the boutique sister hotel of the Grand Hotel so was right next door. Our room had this huge collection of old national geographics on a shelf from 1970 up.
these flowers were in boxes right outside the door.  Appropriately called fluttering butterfliesWe never found out what these were called but I loved them. My absolute favorite day was our last day renting vespas and exploring the whole of Stockholm using a very user friendly GPS. We toured the Royal Palace and saw the crown jewels – that were interestingly stolen a couple weeks after we were there.  I remember thinking that the Swedish were very light on security compared to most countries with their prized jewels and possessions.  I think I saw a security guard every 5th room or so.  There were so many magnificent view stops along the way. This is the one and only real beach in Stockholm and it’s crowded all summer.  Another interesting thing about Sweden is there were young families everywhere.  We thought that was super unusual since we haven’t seen that in our other European travels. B asked a dad if that’s a pretty normal thing and he said “Most of Europe have little families, they just hide them away and we prefer to bring them out and take them everywhere with us, especially in the summer”.  Makes sense, especially thinking about their horrible winter with only 3 hours of sunlight.  I’m not sure how they handle it.  Must be why my people migrated southwest.  Also there are mini blonde women with small noses and thick hair everywhere.  Maybe I was paying closer attention and watching for them, but honestly I have never seen more thick blond hair in my life than in Sweden.   This little area was my favorite area.  It was a kind of hidden away from traffic on the water with big windows in the apartments overlooking the harbor and quaint little shops, restaurants and parks in the area. Every single day we’d walk through these trees headed for the main town center. Every single day I loved it!B has always called his brothers the “moonya brothers”…..this is the first time we’ve ever seen anyone else use that word.  Swedish bread on a stick…..brilliant!A few years back in Austria, B settled himself on a park bench in a square to rest between biking where we noticed that he was accompanied by many senior citizens.  We also had the same experience once in Portland and then we stopped here on our vespa tour in Stockholm.  He doesn’t try to seek out these areas, he just is drawn to them.  I’ll have to eventually do a post with just those photos. If I make it over there again, I will definitely head south to visit the areas of my ancestors. I would also rent vespas for the entire time we spent in Stockholm and I will maybe try to visit when the sun is up for a somewhat more normal amount of time. I will take more photos of the thick blond hair.  And maybe keep taking photos of the incredible flowers…